


the strongest stars

by winter_has_come



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: AU - Jyn and Cassian live, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-12 05:25:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9057445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_has_come/pseuds/winter_has_come
Summary: ten little soldiers, a most loyal crewfought to death on the beaches, and then there were twotwo little soldiers held each other tighterlucky for both, one's heart was of kyberIn which Jyn and Cassian awake after the invasion with no idea how they escaped.





	1. the awakening

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first fic. I normally just read, but there's not enough Rogue One material out there so I decided to contribute a lil bit. I'm open to comments/criticisms!
> 
> I've already got like 5k more written, so if it's not total shit I'll post the rest soon.

Jyn collapses to her knees, the sandy beach cushioning her fall. It’s almost beautiful, she thinks, staring out at the light on the horizon. For a split moment, she can pretend the awful destruction is merely the sun setting on this most bloody day.

Her hand finds Cassian’s. The light erases the worry lines that have begun to set into his face after twenty long years with the rebellion. His eyes are wide as he nods at her slightly. He isn’t smiling, but there is happiness in his nod. Somewhere out there, there is a rebel alliance ship with the Death Star plans aboard. The Death Star, with its glaring flaw. The Death Star, that they could only hope someone would succeed taking down.

 _Let this be the last shot that damned moon ever fires,_ Jyn prays. It wouldn’t be them to destroy it. Jyn wishes for a fleeting moment, in a fit of poetic irony, that she could have been the one to close out her family’s defiance.

“Your father would have been proud of you,” Cassian tells her in a near whisper, as if he has heard her unspoken regret.

“Thank you,” she mouths back, smiling slightly. She isn’t sure what she is thanking him for. For staying. For trusting her. For believing in her.

They’ve done their part. She turns her face to the rapidly encroaching destruction quickly obfuscating the horizon. Soon it will engulf her. Small, weak Stardust. Here is this thing, so much greater than herself, and she is going to be part of its downfall.

 _I am going to be the death of you, just as you are to me,_ she thinks, staring down the Star. How’s that for balance?

Then, there is Cassian.

 _I could have known you_ , she thinks, rather mournfully. But she does know him, in a way. She knows little about the minutiae of his life, and yet, she knows him. She knows the set of his jaw as he heads into battle, she knows the twitch of his cheek just before he pulls the trigger. She… _I could have known you. If only we had had more time._

Reaching her arms around Cassian’s neck, they stand, clutching each other. There is nothing left, now. Nowhere to run. No missions to complete. No more time. Nothing but each other. Over Cassian’s shoulder, Jyn watches the horizon rise in front of her. Any moment now. She was not afraid, she notices, holding Cassian a little bit tighter. She hopes it will be quick. She hopes she will not suffer.

The light seems to pulse. Jyn can feel it now, the blister on her bare skin, a heat that is becoming more and more intense. She closes her eyes to the blinding heat, focusing on Cassian’s mouth against her ear, his lips forming words she can’t quite make out.

 _I could have loved you if only we had more time_ , she thinks, fingering a strand of his hair. Then she corrects herself. _I did love you. I do love you_.

Finally she thinks, _thank you for staying_.

And then.

Nothing.

 

\----------------

 

She wakes. Consciousness comes slowly. She isn’t sure at first if what she’s feeling is truly consciousness. She can’t remember what it’s like to be conscious. What is it like? Like this, evidently. She isn’t sure. It’s been so long since she’s felt anything real spark inside her mind. Who is she? She is Jyn Erso. She is Jyn Erso. That is who she is, she decides. Where is she? She does not know. Can she breathe? Her lungs suck in, push out, and while the air crackles and burns inside her lungs, it is breath. Can she feel? Her little finger twitches against a hard surface. She taps it once, twice. She can feel. Can she see? Her eyes are gummy as she pries them open, one by one. Her vision is fuzzy, a mess of gray and black and white. Can she see? Not exactly. Oh, well. Is she alive? It seems so. How? How is she alive? Jyn feels the memory of the fire of the Death Star faintly on her skin, she _feels_ it. How did it not kill her? Did it kill Cassian?

Jyn opens her mouth. “Cassian,” she means to say, but she can only manage a harsh croak.

Hands are on her. Red lights. Beeping. Voices. She can’t hear them, can’t understand what they’re saying.

“Cassian,” she tries to say again.

The voices are chattering at her. There are lights. There are noises. There are sharp pricks at her, all over her body. She feels fire run through her veins, then ice, holding her down, holding her down. Jyn can’t move, can’t see, can’t hear, can’t – _CASSIAN_.

 _CASSIAN_ , she wails into the silence of her mind, before falling back into sticky unconsciousness.

 

\-------------

Cassian wakes. _Jyn_. He tries to roll off his gurney, but everything in his body screams in protest. _Jyn, Jyn, Jyn_. He tries again. His ribs howl. His pelvis shrieks. His head throbs. _Maybe not_.

Cassian’s fingers find the call button he knows is at the side of every hospital bay bed. _Jyn, Jyn, Jyn_.

“Is she alive?” is his first question.

“Did the plans make it back to Yavin 4?” is his second.

“Jyn Erso is alive,” the attending nurse assures him. “The Death Star has been destroyed.”

 _Okay. They’ll be okay_. “What happened?” Cassian chokes out. They were dying on the beaches of Scarif. They were _dead_. There was no feasible way they could have escaped.

“You were picked up by one of the last X-wing fighters as we were pulling out of Scarif. You barely made it out, Captain Andor.”

That was impossible. There was no fighter. Cassian had felt the burn on his skin as the heatwave rolled towards him. There was no way they’d been picked up. There hadn’t been enough time.

“There wasn’t enough time,” he begins to protest. “Evidently, there was enough,” the nurse dismisses him. “You’ll be briefed on the full events later. You’ve been in rough shape, though. All your ribs had at least one fracture, and your spine was fractured in two places. Your ACL tore, you sustained severe internal bleeding, and your left lung collapsed. You’re on the mend, though. You’re projected to make a full recovery, though you’ll likely be out of the game for a good long time.”

“And Jyn?”

“Jyn is alive,” the nurse said simply. “Would you like to see her?”

 

\--------------

 

Cassian. Jyn’s heart sings. She has not yet regained any sense of spatial awareness, her hearing crackles and distorts, and her eyes can’t seem to focus, but she can sense him.

 _Cassian_. She knows he is here. She knows. She doesn’t know how. _Cassian_.

“I’m here, Jyn.” She hears Cassian’s voice clear as day.

 _Cassian_. Jyn is suddenly overcome with sorrow. _K2-SO. Chirrut, Baze, Bodi, Melshi, Tonc, Sefla, Pterro –_

“I know,” Cassian’s voice soothes her. “I know.”

 _So many,_ she mourns. _Why us?_

Jyn can feel Cassian’s aura shift, then flare in pain. “I don’t know why we lived, Jyn.” Cassian’s voice is broken. “Chirrut would say it was how the Force willed it, but I don't know. I don't know.”

 _It isn’t fair. I was ready to die_. Jyn cries, pain, physical and psychological, lancing through her wrecked body. _Why us? Why did we not die?_

Pain. Pain. Too much. Jyn gasps with the desperation of a drowning woman. Too much, too –

 

 

\-------------

 

Jyn opens her eyes, and she she can see. She’s back on Scarif. The beach is glowing with golden light, the horizon crumbling in front of her as the growing wind whips through her hair. She steps back from Cassian, but he does not fall. He doesn’t even appear injured, and is cleaner now than she’s ever known him to be. He is standing straight and tall, and is glowing with an ethereal blue light.

 _Cassian_? she asks him tentatively. Jyn. _Where are we?_

 _Do you not recognize it?_ Jyn looks around. Scarif is still. No waves lap at the beach, no palm fronds move in the wind, and the blast wave is moving no closer to them.

 _We’re in Scarif,_ she responds. _Right before our death. Only time – time has stopped._

 _Really?_ Cassian asks her. Jyn looks down at her own glowing blue form. She’s wearing her usual grey scarf and vest, not the imperial uniform she’d donned before infiltrating the Scarif base. Her hands are blemish free, smoother than she’s seen them since she was six years old.

 _I think so?_ she questions. Cassian shrugs, and suddenly he isn’t Cassian anymore, but a brown-robed figure of indiscernible gender with a hood pulled over its eyes.

 _Who are you_ , she demands, near hysterics. _Why am I not dead?_

 _How do you know you are not dead?_ The figure asks her, its voice mellow and slow, with a hint of humor.

 _Because there is nothing after death. This is something_.

_How do you know there is nothing after death?_

_Because if there is something after, then whatever happened was not death,_ Jyn argues. _I am thinking. I am aware. I am alive. I want to know how._

 _Everything happens as the Force wills it,_ the figure tells her _. Be it life, be it death, be it something in between._

 _Ten little soldier boys, onto Scarif they thundered_ , a small voice sings, and chills run up Jyn's spine. That voice. Almost like - Jyn turns, and there she is. Young, clean, pure Jyn, humming as she plays with a Stormtrooper doll in the sand.

 _To the troopers they faced, ten felt like a hundred_.

 _Go home_ , Jyn calls to the girls in desperation. _The Star is coming. It isn’t safe!_ The girl merely smiles at her, before returning to her toy and her song.

_Nine little soldier boys flew to the gate_

_the empire closed the shield, and then there were eight._

_Eight little soldier boys, a most loyal crew_

_fought to death on the beaches, and then there were two._

_Two little soldiers held each other tighter_

The younger turns to the elder, staring her in the eyes.

_Lucky for both, one’s heart was of kyber._

_Stardust…_ It’s Galen, she knows it. Will she see him? This entire dream would be worth it if she could only catch a glimpse of her father. Jyn turns around again and again, searching for the voice’s source. _Papa_?

“Come on Jyn.” Jyn whirls around, and there is Cassian, reaching his hand out towards her. He isn't glowing now. His skin is tan, if slightly paler than normal. He looks real. “Time to leave Scarif.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn and Cassian seek answers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. another chapter. It's pretty short, but I was reading through the rest of the stuff I have written and it's no bueno so imma edit some before I post the rest.

_Cassian?_ Jyn is immobilized once again, her head spinning and her ears popping. Hands are all over her once again. She is tingling, tingling, the type of buzzing that comes after blood begins to return to an asleep limb. Lights surround her, spinning in a kaleidoscope above her half-open eyes.

Doctors? They are. They are doctors. The lights – she can see them now, the small flashlights meant to test her basic cognition. The doctors hover above her, murmuring question after question. Don’t they know she can’t _hear_ them? Jyn fumbles with words, attempting to let them know she’s conscious, she’s _alive._

A hand on hers. _Cassian._

Suddenly, everything is clear.

“Jyn? Jyn? Time to wake up.” Cassian’s voice is strained and thin, not distorted and echoing like before. Jyn is lying barefoot on a med bay gurney, wearing only a thin gown as protection against the chill of the room. Cassian is seated next to her bed, his blue jacket the only splash of color in the painfully white and chrome room.

“Who were they?” Jyn rasps.

“Who was who?” Cassian’s thumb is drawing circles on the back of her hand. Very distracting.

“In the cloak. I dreamed of them. I dreamed of Scarif. I dreamed of you.” Jyn opens her eyes, and looks at Cassian. Cassian, who, with a fading bruise marring the right side of his face is somehow still as beautiful as ever.

“We’re alive.” Jyn laughs at the ridiculousness of that thought, then convulses in pain.

“Lie still now,” Cassian soothes her. “You’ve been through a lot.”

“How?” she asks. _How did we get through it? How did we live?_

Cassian shrugs. “I’ve been awake three days, and all they’ll tell me is that we’ll be briefed once we ‘recover’. I did get told something about being picked up by an X-wing right before the blast hit, though.”

“Bullshit.”

“I agree,” Cassian tells her.

Jyn pauses before asking her next question. “Did anyone else make it?”

She averts her eyes from Cassian’s before he answers so she won’t have to see the answer written on his face as well as hear it.

“No.” Cassian takes her hand again. He’s trembling, Jyn notices. “No. They’re – “

Jyn squeezes his hand, letting him know he doesn’t need to continue. She knows.

“How long was I out?” She asks finally, breaking the silence that had stretched between them.

“You were unconscious for nine days.” It is a doctor, and not Cassian, who answers her. “Sergeant Erso, I’m going to need you to grab my fingers. That’s right. Now squeeze the left one… now the right…”

“Sergeant?” Jyn scoffs. “Commandeer an impounded imperial ship and they make you a sergeant. Interesting.”

“You’re officially allowed a blaster now,” Cassian informs her lightheartedly.

“As if that stopped me before.”

Despite her mock scorn, the thought of her rank makes Jyn’s heart glow with pride. A sergeant. _Your father would have been proud of you._

“Now, Sergeant, if you could follow my finger with your eyes…”

 Jyn puts up with the arbitrary testing, but only for a certain amount of time. Somewhere in between a blood draw and a reflex test, she snaps.

“Enough! You’ll get your answers once I get mine. Where’s Mon Mothma?”

“With all due respect, Sergeant, you can’t even walk. Rest, and answers will come in time.” The doctor’s patronizing tone infuriates Jyn.

“Can’t walk? How do you know I can’t walk?” Jyn demands, sliding herself off the gurney. “You didn’t even test that bit yet –”

Jyn’s legs give out the minute she attempts to place weight on them, crumpling beneath her as if they were made of paper, not bone.

Cassian is there in an instant, lifting her under the arm back onto the gurney. “Not so fast, Jyn,” he chides, though there’s humor in his eyes.

“Thank you, Captain. Now, Sergeant, if you could-” the doctor begins, before Cassian cuts him off.

 “I’ll get you a chair, Jyn,” Cassian interrupts. “I agree, we need some answers.”

“And I want my clothes back,” Jyn adds, but of course, nobody listens to her.

Jyn and Cassian make their way through the halls of the base, Jyn attempting periodically to slap Cassian’s hands away from the handles of her wheelchair so she can wheel it herself, but Cassian doggedly holds on.

“Where are we, anyway?” Jyn asks, leaning back in her chair and resigning herself to picking at her hospital gown. “This doesn’t look like Yavin Four.”

“Hoth,” Cassian tells her. “The base on Yavin was compromised.”

“Wherever we are, Mon Mothma isn’t here,” Jyn tells him frankly.

“How do you know?” Cassian asks, perplexed.

Jyn turns to him, her brow furrowed. “I don’t know. She’s just… gone.” Jyn can’t explain it, but she knows with all certainty that Mothma is off-world.

“Interesting,” Cassian muses.

“Captain Andor! The med droids informed me you weren’t to be up for another week at least.” Cassian and Jyn turn as a woman in a white puffed vest strides toward them. Jyn suddenly becomes aware of Cassian’s physical state, how his knees tremble slightly, and how his grip on her wheelchair is white with his efforts to hold on.

“With all due respect, Princess, you informed me that there would be a briefing once Jyn was awake.” Does Cassian’s voice sound strained? It does, Jyn decides. That bastard, pretending to be fully healed while simultaneously keeping her in a wheelchair.

“I’m awake,” Jyn supplies helpfully.

The princess regards them thoughtfully for a moment. “Meet in the briefing room in an hour. I need to get a comm to Doctor Caro,” she informs them, before striding away.

“Wait,” Cassian calls to her back. “We don’t know where the briefing room is!”

“Who was that?” Jyn asks, once the woman is gone.

“Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan,” Cassian answers her. “She was the one who received our transmission from Scarif.”

Jyn pauses a moment before saying, “I hope she knows what it took.”

“Don’t give Leia Organa a lecture on sacrifice,” Cassian warns her. “She knows better than anyone what the Death Star cost.”

 

 --------------

 

In their course to the briefing room, Jyn and Cassian stumble across three private chambers, a boiler room, a janitorial closet, a fighter hangar, and an armaments room that makes both of them salivate.

“Can I take a blaster?” Jyn asks, staring down a sleek black number with 50-shot capacity and an Arkanian power pack.

“You’ll be issued one once you’re cleared to…” Cassian begins, before trailing off as Jyn reaches for the blaster. “Or you’ll just steal one.”

They pass through two more minor conference rooms and a mess hall before finally stumbling on the main briefing room.

“Captain Andor, Sergeant Erso,” Leia Organa greets them. “You’re late.”

“You didn’t tell us where to go!” Jyn protests before Cassian nudges her gently on the back of the head to shut her up.

“I would first like to thank you,” the princess says warmly to the pair. “The plans you stole were integral in the destruction of the Death Star. Your contributions to the Rebellion will not be forgotten.”

“It wasn’t just us,” Jyn says, her voice cracking slightly on the last word.

“Rogue One will not be forgotten,” Leia assures them. “A memorial service is to be held the day after tomorrow for them, along with those who died in the battle of Yavin. They will be honored. I promise.”

“Thank you, Princess,” Cassian says, squeezing Jyn’s hand slightly.

Leia nods in acknowledgement of their thanks before turning to the holoprojector. “This is Doctor Caro,” she says, nodding at the projection of a vaguely Aqualian man standing next to her. “He’s been analyzing the situation.”

“You were picked up by an X-wing leaving Scarif,” Caro begins, but Jyn cuts him off.

“Bullshit! We felt the blast hit us. There was no way we jumped in an X-wing and flew away. It’s not possible.”

“I didn’t say you were picked up before the blast.” Caro’s voice is steady. Chills run up Jyn’s spine, and she shivers in her skimpy hospital gown.

Leia flicks on the holoprojector, and an image pops up on the holoscreen. “We sent a scouting mission to Scarif after the ash had stopped falling. We felt it necessary to understand the true scope of the Death Star’s power. This is what we found.”

Jyn rises out of her chair, leaning heavily on the edge of the holoscreen as she tries to get a better look at the image. It is of Scarif, but not as she last remembers it. No waving palm trees, no golden beach, only molten rock and rubble and ash and two figures entangled in an embrace. Two figures who should have been nothing but bone.

Except.

They aren’t.

Starting at holo-Jyn and Cassian’s feet is a conical sanctuary that is untouched by the magnificent destruction of the Death Star, almost as if the fire of the blast had parted around the two, leaving them intact.

Jyn’s throat constricts. “How is this possible?” she chokes. She looks at Cassian, panic evident in her eyes.

Leia changes the image on the holoprojector. This time, the image is of Jyn, lying cold and vulnerable on a hospital gurney. Her gown is pulled down in front, revealing something on her chest.

Jyn looks down instinctively, scrabbling to pull her gown down far enough in front to see what it is the holoscreen is showing her.

Embedded flat into the skin just over her heart, right where her pendant used to lie, is a glittering web of crystal.

_Kyber_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be on vacation for the next three days, but I'll try to post another chapter when I get back.


	3. a new home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry this took so long, I was in the absolute fucking middle-of-nowhere wilderness without cell service or my laptop. Then I come back to civilization and Space Mom has died. 
> 
> Anyway. here's a chapter that seems to mostly be about grief.

 

“The kyber appears to have been driven into your skin during the blast,” Doctor Caro tells the three rebels, seemingly unfazed by Jyn’s panic. “Princess, would you?”

Leia changes the screen again, and the projection of Jyn’s silent body becomes translucent, the full image of the kyber pendant shining through the projection of her body, sharp protrusions of crystal shoved deep into her torso.

“The kyber shattered and buried itself into your sternum,” Doctor Caro continues. “We briefly considered removing it from your body, but scans showed that kyber shards have made it as far as your heart, making removal an unjustifiably dangerous process.”

“In her heart?” Cassian interrupts, worry clouding his eyes. “Will it kill her?”

“It theoretically should have from what we know of human anatomy,” Caro continues, turning to look at Jyn herself with his ghostly Calamari eyes. Jyn shifts uncomfortably under the impersonal gaze of the scientist. “However, cursory testing while Sergeant Erso was asleep seemed to indicate no effect of the crystal on her physical state, though because of her other grievous injuries, it is hard to tell the true scope of the effect of the kyber on Sergeant Erso’s health. Therefore, I am requesting further tests on the matter.”

Jyn nods, pretending to understand the scientist, though her head is reeling. She remembers what her young self had told her in her vision of the beach on Scarif.

“Heart of kyber,” she mutters, sitting heavily back down in her chair. “Was it the kyber that saved us from the Death Star?”

“Per all known properties of kyber, no, but it does appear to be the most logical explanation,” Caro tells her. “And I am disinclined to search for a more complex solution when an obvious one is readily available. I am currently combing all available research on kyber, and hope to find some clues by the time of my arrival.”

“Doctor Caro was an expert on mineralogy at the University of Alderaan,” Leia informs the pair. “He was on a research expedition to Polis Massa when Alderaan was destroyed, and has since pledged himself to the rebellion.”

“Alderaan?” Jyn questions, looking to Cassian for explanation.

“Alderaan was made an example of the Death Star’s abilities.” Leia’s voice is steady, but Jyn cannot mistake the small tremor of the princess’ hand as she fidgets with the sleeve of her white shirt.

Jyn nods, indicating she doesn’t need to hear more. She feels a flicker of guilt throb deep in her heart. First Jedha, then Scarif, and now Alderaan. The legacy of her family. _I’m so sorry,_ she wants to say. _Your home, and family and life were all destroyed by a project carrying my name. I’m sorry._ Something about the tense set of Leia’s shoulders let her know that apologizing wouldn’t help anything, however.

“Do you have a working theory as to what happened?” Cassian asks hopefully.

“I’m currently en route from Dac,” Caro tells them. “I hope to perform a more comprehensive set of tests on Sergeant Erso, to understand the full scope of the kyber’s properties.”

Leia nods. “Thank you, Doctor Caro. We look forward to your arrival.” Caro nods and terminates his connection, his image sputtering and flickering away.

Leia turns to Jyn and Cassian. “Sergeant Erso, Captain Andor, I expect both of you to return to the med bay.”

“Hold on, I still have questions,” Jyn protests.

Something snaps in Leia’s eyes. “Go back to the med bay, Erso. I have bigger problems right now. You’ll get your answers in three days’ time when Caro arrives.”

Jyn and Cassian leave quickly, but not so quickly that Jyn misses seeing Leia leaning heavily against the holoprojector, head hung in defeat. Jyn’s only once met the woman, but she recognizes the seemingly universal posture of grief well.

In her head, Jyn adds Alderaan to her list of things never to be forgotten.

 

 -------------

 

The sands of Scarif run molten around Jyn’s ankles. Ash rains heavily from above, lighting on the fiery ground and melting in with the rest of the burning planet. The ocean is gone, replaced with a steaming pit.

“The Force was supposed to be with _me._ ” A figure lurches towards Jyn, stumbling on the uneven terrain.

“Chirrut?” Jyn asks tentatively. “Chirrut, I’m so sorry- “

“The Force was supposed to be with _me_!” The figure staggers closer, and Jyn can begin to make out its features.

“Chirrut…”

There isn’t much of him left, now. His face is shredded to the bone, bits of seared flesh dripping from his skull. His cloak is mostly gone as well, and Jyn can see that the rest of his body fared no better than his face.

He continues to approach, what’s left of his face contorted into an expression of hatred. “Why was it you the Force protected? You, who were so eager to abandon the cause you’d been raised for to satisfy your own selfish wishes. You, who were irreverent, reckless, and entitled. You, who only cared for you and your family and were all too eager to forget the thousands upon thousands of atrocities committed by the Empire because the Rebellion _inconvenienced_ you. Because it caused you pain. What is your pain, compared to mine?”

Behind Chirrut gathers the rest of the crew. Baze, Bodhi, even the mangled frame of K2-SO have risen behind him, staring at her with the same hateful gaze.

“You’re worse than the lackeys of the Empire,” Bodhi tells her, his voice cracking as it filters through his destroyed throat. “At least they fought for something. You just… stood by.”

“That’s not true,” she protests. “I chose in the end. I went to Scarif. I _fought_.”

“You went, but you didn’t deserve to leave.” It’s Arro Basteren who speaks now. Arro, the nineteen-year-old private who’d been one of the first to volunteer for the Rogue One crew. Arro, the nineteen-year-old private who’d been one of the first to die. “I had a full scholarship to the University of Bar’leth waiting for me. I had a boyfriend, a family, friends back home. I gave that all up. What did you give up?”

“You don’t know everything I’ve given up,” Jyn chokes out.

“We gave up our _lives_!” Yosh Calfor roars, and Jyn can see the light of the burning sands through his shot-out chest.

“You shouldn’t have lived.”

“It’s your fault Jedha burned.”

“It’s your fault we died. It’s your fault Scarif was destroyed”

“It’s your fault Alderaan is gone.”

“Your family’s legacy.”

“Your family’s sins.”

Jyn collapses in on herself, trying to look anywhere but the Rogue One crew members. Their accusations rip through her like blaster fire. _I didn’t choose this,_ she wants to protest. _I didn’t ask to outlive you. I would gladly have given my life for the Rebellion, just as you did. I know I’m at fault, believe me, I know. I hate myself just as much as you do. I don’t know why I survived, but I’d have gladly switched places with you._

Jyn opens her mouth to voice her apologies, but her chest fills with smoke from the dying planet as she tries to speak, choking her, choking her.

_I’m sorry._

_I’m_

           

 --------------

 

Jyn lurches awake, tears wet on her cheeks. She is alone. The med bay is cold, too damn cold, the chrome-and-white décor enhancing the cold far past it’s thermometric level.

_Pull yourself together, Jyn._

She blinks rapidly, attempting to stop the flow of tears from her eyes. _Stupid, weak, need to pull it together, can’t cry about what’s already done. Stupid. Weak. Papa would be ashamed._

Jyn sits up in the darkness, her head spinning. The empty sterility of the med bay pushes in on her, and despite the relative spaciousness of the room, Jyn is suddenly claustrophobic. She swings her feet off the side of the bed, testing her legs cautiously before putting weight on them. Her entire body screams in protest, but this time, her legs hold her.

Jyn wraps herself in her blanket to protect against the cold of Echo Base before leaving the room. She needs to find Cassian. She closes her eyes against the spinning of the world around her, and begins to walk, leaning heavily on the wall as she goes.

When she opens her eyes, Jyn is in front of a door. Cassian’s? She’s not sure. She feels some sort of answer tugging at the back of her mind, but she’s too exhausted to attempt to decipher it. Before she can knock, the door swings open.

“Jyn?” Cassian slurs, squinting to focus on her clearly. He looks a wreck, his skin pale and pupils blown wide. “You were making a lot of noise bumping around on the walls.”

“I-” Jyn’s eyes well up quickly, and she clamps her jaw shut, not trusting herself to speak lest she break down in the middle of the hallway.

“Come on in.” Cassian steps aside and Jyn walks in to the small room. It’s bare except for one cot pressed into the wall, one metal table, and one metal chair. It’s as impersonal as the med bay, but the small comfort of knowing that the room is Cassian’s comforts her.

“Would you like a drink?” Cassian asks her, gesturing towards a half-empty bottle of whiskey sitting on the table.

“I’m not supposed to drink on my medications,” Jyn explains, her voice still wavering as she struggles to hold back tears.

“Neither am I,” Cassian laughs hollowly, clumsily picking up the bottle and taking a swig. “But so what if it kills me? We should already be dead.”

He looks at Jyn, and the emptiness in his inebriated eyes breaks her. She opens her mouth to reply. What she’s going to say she doesn’t know, but it doesn’t matter because as soon as she tries to speak her body is racked with sobs.

Cassian’s arms encircle her, and he’s crying too, she can feel the wetness on her shoulder and the soft shaking of his chest. They sink to the floor, and the concrete floor sends a dull but constant pain through Jyn’s entire body but it doesn’t matter because they are both shattered into millions of pieces and if they let go they might both just fall apart.

The last time they’d embraced like this, Jyn thinks, it had been beautiful. They had been broken, yes, and they had been regretful, and sad, and scared, but it had felt like the grand finale of an epic story, one where they had won. This? This was ugly. This was defeat.

Cassian squeezes her a bit tighter then, pulling her spiraling thoughts back to the present. His rough fingers card her hair, and he pulls back slightly so she can see his face.

“Why did the Force spare _us_?” Jyn’s whispered question isn’t one she expects Cassian to have the answer to, but she needs to ask it anyway.

Cassian tilts Jyn’s head forward, leaning his clammy forehead against hers. “I don’t know,” he whispers back. “But we are here now. So let us make the most of our extra time. It’s what the others would have wanted.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Jyn’s voice is hollow but clear, all her tears already spent. She looks down, focusing on the stark white view of the concrete floor to block the horrid, bloody images of Scarif from her mind.

“I am,” Cassian tells her with certainty. “I’ve lost a lot, Jyn,” he tells her, his voice catching slightly. “So have you. But I am still here, and so are you, and the Rebellion lives on. We should have died, yes, but that doesn’t mean we don’t still have a purpose.” Cassian brushes her slightly matted hair out of her eyes. “That doesn’t mean you don’t still have a home.”

Jyn considers kissing him, then. It would be easy, and he would most likely be willing, but Jyn doesn't want to ruin this moment with lust-driven impulses. Or would it be lust?

 _I could have loved you_ , she remembers thinking so long ago on that beach. _Could I still love you?_

Jyn doesn’t know. Her mind has gone foggy, and every muscle in her body is relaxed, on the verge of sleep. All Jyn knows is that for the first time since waking up on Hoth, she feels warm.

 

           

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some notes on canon:  
> 1) Echo Base wasn't in full use until several months after the Battle of Yavin. I changed that, because the move from Y4 to Both wasn't something I felt like writing. Suck it.  
> 2) There were no private rooms on Echo Base. There were barracks. I don't care.  
> 3) In the previous chapter, I referred to Caro as Aqualian. There is no such species. He is now Mon Calamari. Suck that.
> 
> also: they shall get it on soon. i promise.


End file.
